Watch carefully how Ron Paul is handled by the media and the rest of the establishment, and you'll see how politics is played. It's not an honest game. (But we knew that already, didn't we?) His words are twisted, and in "interviews" he's constantly interrupted by hysterical commentators so that he can't get a solid sentence out to set the record straight. This is an honest discussion?
Did you notice how Sean Hannity immediately changed the subject on Paul after the debate? Hannity first asked him how he can blame America for the 9/11 attacks. And when Paul tried to repeat what he had actually said, Hannity switched gears and asked whether "we" should do nothing when dictators mistreat their people?
Pardon, Sean. But one subject at a time, if you please. Are we to conclude that you concede Paul's point that U.S. policy seeded the ground for terrorism and now you want to argue that terrorism is the price we must pay for an interventionist foreign policy? If so, say so.
Or do you just have attention deficit disorder?
Ron Paul stands for two things that both Democrats and Republicans, and the liberal media and conservative media all despise: limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteLeaving aside that "limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution" got us to our present state, politics is most definitely not a "game," honest or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteFor something to be a game, there must be clearly defined and inflexible rules applied to all participants. Soccer is soccer only when the players are forbidden from using their hands. Chess is chess only when the king can move one square at a time.
No clearly defined and inflexible rules applied equally to each player, no game. QED.
If you want to know what politics is, look no further than Clausewitz: "Politics is the extension of war by different means."
I disagree with James that limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution got us to our present state. Deviation from limited government and strict adherence got us to our present state. But I'm not going to argue with him about it.
ReplyDeleteThat's OK, I'll argue.
ReplyDeleteThe Constitution was written using extremely vague language with many contradictory and open-ended clauses. Even if it were written in the plainest English, as some argue it was, documents do not interpret themselves -- only humans can do that.
It is this necessity of interpretation, amplified by the centuries, that has precisely led us to the present state of affairs.
Georgetown University professor John Hasnas, a published legal scholar, has written The Myth of the Rule of Law, a monograph that explains this phenomenon with perfect clarity:
http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm
Hasnas is a concise and entertaining writer. It's worth the read.